Eating: zucchini, carrots, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, feral pak choi-type thing, Cape gooseberries, celery, a few strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. I hae vastly more carrots than tomatoes, so perhaps I finally managed to get the balance between carrots and tomatoes correct.

Weeding: I cleaned out the whole of my salad greens bed, which is really mostly taken over by herbs and Cape gooseberries. I left in the celery, which is still small but should give me something in winter, but weeded out almost everything else except the perennials (sage, lovage, native cress, lemon, Cape gooseberry, sorrel, Dianthus and some multiplying onions). Realistically, it’s a herb garden with vegetables in the gaps. Still, my previous effort at a herb garden is a mess.

Feeding: I gave the newly-designated herb garden a good lot of sheep manure pellets, organic fertiliser and compost. Plus liquid from the worm farm for my zucchinis and various other things.

Planting: rosemary and French tarragon. I do have plants of both, but they are small and have been overtaken. The French tarragon could have been moved, but I suspect that the garden where it is may have some Phytophthora, so I don’t want to transplant any soil.

Also weeding: my path. The pea straw, weeds and pine needles that made up my paths have formed a rather nice compost that is supporting luxuriant weed growth. I didn’t get very far, but I managed to dig out a few metres of path. I bagged up the weeds to rot for compost, dug up the compost and put it in the garden, and replaced with fresh straw.

Observing: fruit set on my Unique feijoa. Abundant little grasshoppers (Phaulacridium marginale). Raspberries are full of stick insects, but no obvious signs of damage. Lots of cabbage white butterflies, but not a lot of caterpillars, but then I’m not growing a lot of brassicas yet, except the random pak choi things, which don’t necessarily seem to be much affected. Some cute little brown butterflies that I think might be yellow admirals – one was paying a lot of attention to the wall pellitory, which makes sense as it is related to stinging nettle. Best not to try and write everything when it is late and I’m too tired to self-edit.

Anticipating: apples. I should get 6-8 apples this year. I’m eating lots of market apples, but really looking forward to my own ones.